


Adventurous

by LittleSammy



Series: Adventure [1]
Category: NCIS
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-04-27
Updated: 2010-04-27
Packaged: 2017-10-09 05:00:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,272
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/83296
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittleSammy/pseuds/LittleSammy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The story behind and leading up to the movie date. ;)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Adventurous

**Author's Note:**

> setting: NCIS, during and directly after 7x18 "Jurisdiction". Yes, spoilers for that ep, but Tiva-centric.
> 
> warnings &amp; rating: Banter, gentle fluff and smoochies. There's nothing to rate here. Move along.

Bagging and tagging the contents of the storage locker was, as Tony so aptly put it, "a bitch", and it didn't take long until Ziva felt... unnerved, to put it mildly. She knew it had to be done, of course, but there weren't any real discoveries to be made while just digging through the stuff and deciding what should go where in the boxes and how to label it. It was boring. It was _Probie_ work.

 

That thought made her frown and sneak a quick glance at Tony, and for a second she wondered why he hadn't left the whole job to her anyway. Probably because rummaging through "sunken pirate treasure" was too big a temptation for him, if she went by his muttered movie quotes, interspersed with weird trivia in a way that reminded her of McGee and jet packs. She sighed and grabbed the next plastic bag.

 

"Man," he said just then, whistling through his teeth, and she turned her head to see him raise the bag containing the gold coins. He jiggled it slightly, and the coins rattled in his hands obligingly. "You could buy a lot of dates with that."

 

That made her laugh, and she shook her head while taking some snapshots of the walls. Then she started rolling up the charts and taking down the newspaper clippings one by one. "I'm sure _you_ could..." she said and heard him snort at her words, which made it hard to stay serious.

 

"Get your mind out of the gutter, Probie," he scolded. "I'm not talking about ladies of a certain profession, but something with a little more class involved."

 

"I met quite a few of those ladies who had more class..."

 

"I was," he interrupted her, and she snickered at his discomfort about the direction the topic was threatening to take, "talking about the classic here - dinner and a movie, ever heard of those? Where the guy gets you the popcorn and the soft drinks, and halfway through the movie he yawns and stretches as a flimsy excuse to get his arm around you, in the vain hope of making out with you later?"

 

"Oh. The _cheap_ dates," she replied, rolling up yet another chart. "Never been on one of those."

 

For a second, there was only silence from his end of the storage locker, and when she turned her head, she found him staring her at with something close to shock on his face. "You're kidding me, right?"

 

That made her raise her eyebrows. "Were you not the one talking about class a minute ago?" she asked and went back to bagging evidence with a slight smile tugging at her lips. "And I don't see the point here. Anyone trying that would have encountered three knives before getting anywhere near my shoulder."

 

"That, I believe," he muttered, put the bag of coins away and started with the next batch of random items. He was quiet for two whole minutes while he grabbed one of the plastic containers and stuffed the small wooden chest from the table into it. Ziva's nose wrinkled at its smell, rank in a way that had nothing to do with sea water. Then she felt his eyes on her again, and it made her want to shake her head before he had even opened his mouth. "Let me take you on one of these dates."

 

She snorted. "I don't think so."

 

"Hey, I'm being _totally_ selfless here!" Tony protested, and she glared at him. He just grinned in return, the same kind of grin as that of the snake trying to make the bunny feel safe. It made her feel far from safe but wonder instead who had wired his brain to make it work like this. "Think of it as a cultural experience!"

 

Ziva laughed at that, loud and hard. "Making out with you is hardly a cultural experience," she quipped and turned back to the table to scrape the remaining debris on it into yet another plastic bag.

 

"That part is entirely optional," he said very softly, and all of a sudden he was so close that she almost jumped at the sound of his voice right by her side. She stared up at him, and he grinned some more. Damn it. He had noticed. "You're almost legally one of us now, so you need to brush up on the cultural habits of, what, roughly twenty years?"

 

She cocked her head, then turned and reached for the slim, beautifully worked dagger that had caught her eye earlier. "Mmmh," she hummed while she tested the blade with her thumb. It had certainly seen better days, but the silver underneath the crust of corals still showed some of the delicate craftsmanship that had gone into forging it. She looked at Tony over her shoulder and saw his gaze go back and forth between her face and the knife in her hands. And for some reason she knew it wasn't concern about what she might do with it that darkened his eyes, but rather the briefest flicker of anticipation. She blinked, and when she eventually answered him, her dismissal didn't come out quite the way she had planned to phrase it in the first place. "You forget that I'm trying to play by the rules now."

 

"And which one are you referring to now, exactly?" he asked, and his voice was so low and playful that she knew he had gotten her unintentional drift all too well.

 

"You know which one perfectly well," she replied and wanted to slap herself because her own way of arguing had taken it into the scary realm of maybe-if-not-for-the-circumstances.

 

"Oh, right. _That_ one," he answered lightly while he ran his latex-covered fingers over the greenish tint on the musket's barrel before bagging it. "You know, legally Gibbs has no right to invoke that one on us. And he has broken it himself often enough."

 

She raised a finger and waggled it at him with a tut-tut sound rolling off her tongue. "Technically, no. He does bed them, but can you imagine Gibbs actually dating?"

 

"Uhm, hold on." His face scrunched up in deep concentration for a minute, and she chuckled when he finally shook his head and resumed work. "My mind isn't cut out to go there."

 

"There you are," she smiled, satisfied, and picked up the first pile of boxes.

 

She managed a single step before he was in her way, murmuring "C'mon, Ziva..." in his best persuasive tone of voice. Then he smiled at her again, and this time he gave her such a suggestive one it made her stop. "It's like that saying," he said softly. "You know, the one that says 'There ain't no better reason to rid yourself of vanities and just go with the seasons'."

 

His voice was oddly melodic suddenly, almost like he were humming the words, and she stared at him suspiciously, frowning. "Are you quoting movies at me again?"

 

"No." He blinked, once. Then he folded. "I thought I'd expand my repertoire into popular songs."

 

"Don't," she said and stepped around him.

 

When she returned from loading the boxes into the van, she almost ran into Tony, who had come up to the locker unit's gate to watch her. "I wasn't talking about a real date, of course," he said, and she moaned and let her head fall back in exasperation.

 

"Will you stop it?"

 

"Not unless you agree to the experience you never had," he replied coyly. "Or at least a simulation of a dinner-movie-makeout date..." She glared at him, and he waggled his eyebrows. "... with the makeout session being optional, yes, of course."

 

"I opt out now," she sighed and pushed past him, picking up the next pile of boxes.

 

"Dinner-movie-dance then?"

 

"I am not dancing with you either."

 

"Aw, come on, not even in a simulation?"

 

And just like that, he was in her way again, all broad shoulders and smile and muscle. And yes, in her weaker moments, she had to admit to herself that she had noticed how there seemed to be a lot more muscle to him again lately.

 

For a second she was tempted to bring her heel down hard on his toe just to make him leave this alone. Except that getting violent had never been the right way to make him back off, and so Ziva took a deep breath instead and shifted the box from in front of her to the side until it was resting on her hip. She moved closer to him, into his personal space, and his smile faltered the tiniest bit when she gave him one of her own, brilliant and charming. The kind of smile she reserved for the men she needed to bring down fast, one way or the other.

 

"I rarely need to fake," she stated, and the smug tone of her voice made his pupils widen while a dozen different thoughts ran loose in his head.

 

Then he leaned into her, and the way his mouth curved distracted her for a heartbeat or two. He had gotten a lot better at playing that game, she had to give him that. "But you have?"

 

Her eyes narrowed, thankfully, because better did not mean master, yet. "Don't even think of asking me to perform." She grabbed the box tighter and pushed past him, doing her best to keep her elbows to herself because that would take it back to the childish level and declare her loser.

 

"So, tomorrow night then. I'll pick you up after work, whenever that may be," he called after her, and she grunted. Not bloody likely. "Will you leave the knives at home?"

 

"You'll see," she muttered, and his soft laughter made her wonder if she had accidentally just agreed to this madness without noticing it.

 

*** *** ***

 

Her fingers raced across the keyboard while Ziva tried to finish up her paperwork before the team was back with their arrest. Before Tony was back.

 

All day long he had taunted her with his date invitation, throwing ideas at her about what movie to watch or where to go for dinner whenever Gibbs had been elsewhere and McGee too engrossed in his work to notice. And every now and then he had leaned into her just a little too close for comfort. Had brushed his fingers down her back to get her to notice something or the other. Touched her arm to make her look at the plasma again whenever her attention wavered. Smelled too good to ignore his nearness as easily as the days before.

 

She blinked, then typed faster.

 

Of course, just when she had finally saved the case file, he came strutting out of the elevator, smiling her way brilliantly. Ziva ignored him, just willed her computer to power down faster while she grabbed her jacket and slung her backpack over her shoulder.

 

"Have a nice weekend then," she muttered and tried to storm out of the bullpen.

 

She didn't get very far.

 

"Ah-ah!" Tony's hand grabbed the strap of her backpack and pulled her back mid-step, and she was torn between a groan and a growl when he dragged her back to her desk, took the backpack and dropped it to the floor unceremoniously. "Sit!" he ordered and pushed her down into the chair she had just abandoned, and that brought her glare up quite easily.

 

"I have _other_ plans, To-nee," she pressed out sarcastically through gritted teeth.

 

All that did, though, was make him smile all the more brilliantly. "Relax, my ex-ninja, I'm gonna take care of that in a minute. But first..."

 

She squealed. She actually squealed when he grabbed her chair, swiveled it around and pushed it from behind her desk in front of the plasma screen, moving it easily with Ziva sitting in it. Her pulse jumped hard, and she found herself grabbing the arm rests even after he had put her right where he wanted her. Maybe because her urge to run was fighting with her curiosity now. Maybe, though, because he leaned into her once more from behind and his cheek brushed hers for a second before he spoke.

 

"Now, stay put while I make one phone call."

 

She turned her head and opened her mouth to object... and didn't, after all, because he was still so close that she could have kissed that smiling mouth so easily without moving more than a hair's width. Her pulse was doing bad things all of a sudden, and yes, she should have run, definitely. Her hands tightened their grip on the arm rests. He smiled once more, and then he _winked_ at her and turned around, and Ziva felt like grinding her teeth while she watched his back with murder on her mind.

 

Her cell phone rang, and she jumped, dug the phone out of her pants and flipped it open without looking at the caller ID. "David."

 

"Hey, sweetheart," she heard Tony's voice against her ear, and she blinked, not sure if it was the endearment that threw her off more or the fact that he was calling her from not even ten feet away. "Listen, I'm really sorry about this, but I have to cancel our date for tonight. Something at work came up that requires all my attention, and..."

 

She breathed out slowly. He had mixed up the numbers. "Tony..." she started, and then the rest of the sentence ended up forgotten because he had turned around and was meeting her eyes, all smiling and watching her reaction. "That's... alright..." she told her phone quietly, holding his gaze. "Actually, I was just about to call you..."

 

He grinned and told her they'd do this another time, and she nodded and then thought that he couldn't see her over the phone, which was an utterly silly thought of course because Tony was, after all, standing right in front of her. All this added up to her confusion, and when they both flipped their phones shut and he came back to her, she stared up at him with a frown drawing her brows together.

 

"What was that about?"

 

He leaned forward and put his hands on her arm rests, right beside hers, and that made her feel his skin against her wrists. It also brought his face so close again that she lost her train of thought for a second, and yes, she met his eyes with such immense concentration because otherwise she would have had no choice but to watch his mouth do its thing.

 

"Just allowing you to play by the rules," he explained eventually, and she did look at his lips then because they curved into one of his slow smiles. The kind she would have rather died over than call it tempting, not even under torture. And what was he talking about now? Her frown must have given her away because he had the courtesy to elaborate. "See, this isn't a date at all. This is something we do at work. So I'm technically not dating my culturally challenged coworker."

 

"Oh." It was a lame reply, granted, but he still grinned at her and watched her feel weird with so much amusement in his eyes that for a second, she did feel like a teenager again.

 

"So, why don't you make yourself comfortable while I get you some popcorn? Something to drink?"

 

She nodded, blinking in confusion, and he went to actually make popcorn. Winking at her again before he turned away and left to run his errands.

 

It took a few deep breaths until Ziva snapped out of it enough to shake her head. What was going on here? And what possessed this man to suddenly... well, to start doing _this_ to her? Being all nice and flirty and just generally _thinking_, for a change?

 

Her hands tap-danced across the arm rests, and soon enough she found herself nibbling on her index finger nervously. It made her swear, but didn't help the fact that she had picked up that nasty habit only recently. And only when she was around Tony, fancy that.

 

She bit her nail and ran her thumb over her lips, thinking hard. And finally, she closed her eyes with a groan, because she had to admit to herself that the main problem was her wondering how much of this was real flirtation and how much of it fell into the category of simulation. She should have run earlier, oh yes.

 

She was seriously tempted to just grab her stuff and bail on him after all. Just when she was almost ready to jump to her feet, of course, he came back, bringing with him the enticing smell of fresh popcorn, and it reminded her that lunch had been too long ago. And then she heard his low voice behind her, and it was soft like a pair of arms wrapping around her and even more enticing than the popcorn.

 

"Are you ready for the adventure of a lifetime?"

 

She blinked and chewed on her finger.

 

*** *** ***

 

For some strange reason, Ziva actually liked the movie he had chosen, even though it was another of his man movies and she had never been too fond of silent movies in the first place. But it was better than the horror flick she had expected to go along with the teenage date fantasy he had been promising her all day.

 

And yes, it was a lot of fun to sneak quick glances at his face every now and then. To watch him smile in rapture during the action sequences. Watch his lips, when he was quoting the lines soundlessly. Especially watching his lips was fun, as it turned out, except for that one moment when he caught her staring. From then on, he was the one to sneak glances.

 

Once, he sucked on his fingers and licked the popcorn taste off of them, and when she saw that out of the corner of her eye, it made her breath catch in her throat. Thankfully, he started to yawn just then and stretch his arms, and that brought her glare back in a heartbeat and left her free to snarl at him.

 

"Don't even think about it."

 

He finished stretching lazily and grinned at the plasma. "Maybe it's worth a knife or two," he mused.

 

"Are you looking for encouragement of suicidal behavior?" she asked, and he laughed at that and put his hands back on the arm rests. Still, for some reason he seemed much closer than just a minute earlier, and Ziva found herself twirling the empty soda cup nervously.

 

She sat through the credits with him, because that was a habit they actually shared. They both loved to stay in the mood for just that little while longer, loved to have the movie fade out slowly before reality intruded again and made them run for the bathroom or the car.

 

Eventually, though, Tony switched off the plasma, and she was shocked to find how dark the bullpen was by now. Almost like a real cinema after all.

 

"So," he said, and it made her turn her head lazily to look at him, expecting to find him sprawled in his chair comfortably like she was.

 

Except that he wasn't. He was leaning over to her, watching her face intently, and she couldn't remember just when his chair had started touching hers, just like she had no idea when exactly the back of his hand had started brushing against her arm.

 

"What, Tony?"

 

He laughed softly at the way her voice sounded, but didn't comment on it. "Well, we had dinner," he said instead and pointed at the empty popcorn bowl. "Movie's over. So now it's either make out or dance, right?" He didn't wait for her to start snarking at him, just raised a hand and offered it to her in a weirdly old-fashioned way. "Care for either one, m'lady David?"

 

She had to laugh at that. "That's silly," she replied, and it felt weird to say these words with such an affectionate ring to her voice. She saw how it made his eyes sparkle with amusement, and her fingers twitched on the arm rests. She'd have to watch it, really. This whole episode was venturing into dangerous territory, and she had a strong feeling that he knew that, too.

 

"Maybe," he agreed, still offering his hand. "But that's what you love about me, right?"

 

"Actually," she said and turned to him in her chair until his face was so close to hers it made her pulse do a double take. "I value other characteristics about you."

 

"Really? Do tell!" he grinned and let his hand fall back to the arm rest while he leaned over to her even more. It made the chair creak underneath him, and Ziva swallowed hard because this was far from comfortably safe. And yet, she couldn't really run screaming now, could she? Damn it.

 

So she laughed instead, deep in her throat, and she saw the flicker of distraction that brought to his eyes. "A lady doesn't kiss and tell," she purred.

 

She saw him struggle with the painfully obvious quip about her ladylike status, and he earned a few extra points for not going for it. "I thought that only applied to gentlemen," he finally said, and she chuckled. And just like that, he leaned a tiny notch closer, and there was that smile again, the devious one, the one that clearly said Tony was on a mission. "And you have never kissed me."

 

"Such short-term memory, my very hairy husband?" she laughed, her voice heavy with a fake French accent. She raised a hand to pat his cheek lazily, but stopped halfway through it because the gesture that had been so familiar once felt way too intimate these days.

 

"That wasn't you, that was Sophie," he replied, and it felt strange that he neither flinched nor drew back. "Or your work identity, whatever suits you better. _You_, Ziva David, have never kissed me in your life."

 

She opened her mouth to object, but the budding argument died just as fast. Because he was right. That hadn't really been her back then, and the guy she had kissed had not been really Tony, either. Not the Tony of late, anyway, and that was the one that counted. She remembered how _he_ had kissed her during the span of that weekend. Remembered his urgency, his impatience. His easy arousal that had made her dismiss him so easily.

 

But that had been a lifetime ago, and he had changed so much since then. And for a moment, she wondered how this one, how the new Tony would kiss her. The one with the gentle hands, and the wink in his eye, and all the time in the world. The one whose cheek she had kissed, but never the lips that could be so tempting when she was least expecting it.

 

"That's easy to rectify," she heard herself say and saw his eyes widen slightly when she leaned closer until her lips almost brushed his. She waited for him to draw back now, to get a safe distance between them like he had always done when she had teased him like this before. It had been so easy to play him back then.

 

But that, she realized, had also been the old Tony. The new one... he didn't draw back. This Tony was observant, and he knew that she was bluffing, and maybe he actually knew that she mostly pretended to be bluffing, after all. And this Tony, the dangerous one... this Tony really, really wanted her to kiss him.

 

She felt her own lips part, and she wasn't sure if she really wanted to say something. And it didn't really matter, because just then, the moment to avoid this had passed, and her lips brushed his, and the world tilted underneath her, just a bit.

 

Soft, so soft. Moving against her mouth, breathing her breath, stealing it. Insistent tongue, dipping between her lips. Tasting her, leisurely, languidly, until she was out of breath and almost out of restraint. Wanted her, so much. With all the time in the world and then some more.

 

Her pulse pounded in her own ears, and his taste made her so hungry all of a sudden that she was the one who had to draw back eventually. Her own breath rang harsh in her ears, and she had to concentrate to reign it back in.

 

"There," she said and fought the urge to grind her teeth because her voice was still too shaky. "No need to tell now."

 

She felt his breath on her cheek as he chuckled softly, and it came as a shock to her that he was still this close. So close she could feel the tempting heat radiating from his lips. She wanted to draw back so badly now, but just then, his fingertips moved against the back of her neck, just right where the softest spots of hair started to grow, and she felt goose bumps run all over her back. When had his hand come up against her cheek like that? When had he started threading his fingers through her hair and stroking her neck like he meant it? She couldn't remember, and it made her eyes widen.

 

"You're right," he murmured against her lips just then, and there was gentle laughter in his eyes while he kept stroking her neck and kept watching her reactions. And his lips brushed against her mouth some more while he murmured, "That was telling enough."

 

*** *** ***

 


End file.
